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THE 



HOUMAS LAND CLAIM; 

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.^ 'LJHIT^'ESFL 



FROM JOHN ClAlBflRp„|Slj.JO JflE HON, C. T. BEMISS, 



ACCOMPAN-IEL) BY A JLETTEH 



FROM THE HON. JOHN SLIDELL TO MR. CLAIBORNE. 



NEW ORLEANS: 

PRINTED AT THE DELTA MAMMOTH JOB OFFICE, 
No. 76 Camp Street. 
1859i 



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By Transfer 
www TC TJn^ 



THE HOUMAS CLAIM. 

A Letter to the Hon. Cyrus T. Bemis, Member of the 
General Assembly of Louisiana. 



New Orleans, April 12, 1859. 

Dear Sir, — lu accordance mth your request, made several weeks ago, 
that I would furnish you with authentic information as to the nature and 
history of the Houmas Land Claim, and its present condition, I have ex 
amined into the official archives at the Land Office in this city, as also into- 
other official documents, and shall proceed, as briefly as may be compatible 
with a full and fair view of the subject, to state the result of my labors. ^ 

The French and Spanish laws for the government of the Colony of 
Louisiana, as those Powers successively held it, permitted to the Indian 
tribes the occupation of the lands upon which their villages and fields were 
situated, Ijut the Crown reserved to itself the title to the soil. Previous 
to the year 1*174 the Houmas and Bayagoulas, together occupied a consid- 
erable tract fronting on the Mississippi, in what is now the parish of Ascen- 
sion. About that date three gentlemen, Messrs. Maurice Conway, Latil 
and McNamara, with the consent of the Colonial authorities, bought of the 
Indians their rights to a tract occupied by them, about twenty-two leagues 
above this city, on the left bank of the river, with the customary depth of 
forty arpents, by a river front of ninety-six arpents. Subsequently, Mau- 
rice Conway purchased the rights of his associates, and became thus the 
sole proprietor of the land. In the month of September, 17*16, Conway 
presented to the Governor of the Colony his petition, in which he alleged 
his ownership of the tract above described, and stated that, owing to the 
absence of timber on it, the Cypress Swamp being then, as he said, more 



4 HOUMAS LAND CLAIM. 

than a league and half from the river bank, he stood in need of the vacant 
lands in the rear of his property, all of which, embraced within the limits 
of the side lines of his property, protracted in the same directions, he pray- 
ed might be granted him. The Governor ordered Louis Andry, the 
Second Adjutant of the post at New Orleans, and who, it appears, was 
frequently employed in making surveys in the Colony, to proceed to the 
land of Conway, and to ascertain and fix the boundaries of the vacant lands 
in the rearxas prayed for by him, in such manner that no injury might be 
done any other persons, and then to put Conway into possession of them, 
making a return of his doings to the Governor, in order that a title in 
form, in Conway's favor, might be made out. This work was performed 
by Andry in the month of October following, in presence of Don Louis 
Jndice, the Commandant of the Post of La'burche, (now Donaldsonville) 
Maurice Conway, the proprietors of the adjacent lands on the upper and 
lower limits, aad the Chief of the Houmas and Bayagoulas, for whom 
Judice acted as interpreter. Andry first proceeded to an examination of 
the boundaries of the front tracts, and certified that he found the stakes 
and landmarks the same as he had himself placed there in IT 13, and that 
he afterwards ran the upper and lower lines on the same compass direction 
for the length of two arpents in the rear of the stakes or posts at the rear 
extremities of the said lines, at which distance he placed other posts, de- 
scribing their height and the wood of which they were made, so that the 
direction of the prolongation of the side lines might be clearly seen, and 
then put Conway into possession of the vacant lands included by the lines 
to be so protracted. 

"~~Dn the 21st June, 177T, Governor Galvez, in pursuance of what had 
been done in the premises under the orders of his predecessor, L^nzaga, 
made out in favor of Maurice Conway, a formal title or concession, by 
which he vested in him the property of the vacant lands in the rear of his 
front tract, within the limits and boundaries so determined by Andry. 

You will thus see that by the laws of the Province, Maurice Conway 
became the full and complete owner of all the vacant lands covered by said 
grant, twenty-three years before Louisiana was retroceded to France, and 
twenty-six years before the latter Power ceded it to the United States* 



HOUIIAS LAND CLAIM. O 

under a treaty, by the third clause of which the inhabitants were solemnly 
guaranteed in their rights of property ; the United States becoming entitled 
only to vacant lands, forts, &c., &c. 

As the back limit of the vacant lands so granted to Maurice Conway, 
in 1777, was not absolutely fixed by Andry, or Galvez, in the act of Con- 
cession, we must have recourse to the contemporaneous acts of the private 
parties in interest, or of Government officers, to show how far the lands so 
conveyed to Conway did extend. Fortunately for the cause of truth and 
justice, such testimony is by no means wanting ; for on the 5th March, 
1778, Conway sold, by act before Don Andre Almonaster y Roxas, the 
King's notary, to Oliver Pollock, thirty arpents in front of the property so 
acquired, with a depth extending to the lake. (A glance at the map of 
the State will show that the only lake in the rear was Maurepas.) On 
the 5th day of February, 1795, WiUiam Conway, who held by conveyance 
from his uncle Maurice, mortgaged in favor of Alex. Baudin, a portion of 
the same lands having a front of thirty arpents by a depth to tlie Lake, Jjy 
a notarial act ; and on the 7th day of April, 1798, he also mortgaged in 
favor of John Joyce another portion with a front of thirty arpents, and a 
depth to the Lake ; and on the 12th of August, 1798, at a public suc- 
cession sale made under the orders of Don Juan Ventura Morales, the 
Intendaut of the Province, of a portion of the same Maurice Conway 
lands, which had been purchased of him by Col. St. Maxent, the property 
was described as having a front of twenty-nine arpents, by a depth of 
about four leagues ; and in the adjudication to Louis Faure, who bought 
it, was dcscri'oed as having that front, by the deptli which could be found, 
openhig about thirt3'-six degrees. Another glance at the map will show 
tbat the line of four leagues thus spoken of, extended towards the Amite 
river. It is well to remember that Morales, as lutendant, was also Royal 
Treasurer of the Province, and was, a few months after that date, charged 
with the disposition of the Royal domain, which power was taken away 
from the Governor General on his recommendation, and he would 
scarcely have permitted the sale, as private property, of lands which were 
vacant, and therefore a part of the Royal domain. Indeed, if there had 
been any want of power in Galvez to make the grant in 1777, it was fully 
cured by the ordinance issued by Morales in his new character, on the ITth 



b HOTJMAS LAND CLAIM. 

of July, 1199, which ratified all titles of the inhabitants held under formal 
titles from former Governors. 

The first step taken by Congress to carry out the obligations of the 
treaty of cession was the passage of an act in 1805 for ascertaining and 
adjusting titles and claims to land in the Territory of Orleans and District 
of Louisiana, (Brightley's Digest, 532, j by which a* Board of Commission- 
ers, to be composed of the Register for the District, and two other persons, 
to be appointed by the President, were to hear and decide on claims 
j founded not only on French or Spanish 'grants made and completed before 
\ October 1st, 1800 — the date of the Treaty of San Ildefonso — but also on 
V Qth er specified classes of claims. The parties claiming under such com- 
plete grants might deposit with the Register, the grant, order, survey, or 
other evidence on which they relied, and the Board, or a majority of them, 
were to decide summarily, and according to "justice and equity," on all 
claims filed. The Board, as at first constituted for the Territory of Or- 
leans, was composed of John W. Gurley, the Register, Joshua Lewis, who 
long presided in the First Judicial District Court of this city, a man re- 
vered for his probity and learning, and Benedict Yan Pradelles, who, if I 
am not in error, was an accompKshed and experienced Notarial Public, 
familiar with the French and Spanish languages, and the laws, usages and 
customs of the colony previous to the cession to the United States. They 
began the discharge of their duties in December, 1805. On the 20th 
February, 1806, William Conway filed, with the Register, his claim to a 
portion of the lands so bought or granted to Maurice Conway in 1114 and 
1111, and the records of his titles is preceded by a figurative plan of the 
tract claimed, drawn by Barthelemy Lafon, a deputy U. S. Surveyor, 
showing a front on the Mississippi, and side lines extending back below to 
Lake Maurepas, and above to the Amite river. About the same time 
Daniel Clark and John W. Scott and William Donalson, who also claimed 
under the Maurice Conway purchase and grant, presented their claims to 
other portions of the land, with fronts on the Mississippi, and side lines 
opening to the rear and extending to the Iberville or Amite rivers. All 
these claims, with the testimony and titles sustaining them, are of record 
in the Land Office in this city, as is also the book containing the minutes 
of the proceedings of the Commissioners, an examination of whiq^ showed 



HOUMAS LAND CLAIM. 1 

that on Monday, the Sdday of March, 1808, the Board — all its members 
being present — considered the claim No. 125, being that of William Con- 
way, and its finding is thus recorded : 

"No. 125. William Conway claims another tract of land situated iu 
the county of Acadia, at the place called the Houmas, on the left bank of 
the Mississippi, containing twenty-two and a half arpents in froiit, with 
an opening toward the rear of sixty degrees forty-five minutes, the upper 
line running north nine degrees fifteen minutes east, three hundred and 
fifty-one arpents, and the lower line directed north, seventy degrees east, 
and measuring four hundred and fifty-five arpents, bounded on the upper 
side by Daniel Clark's laud, and on the lower by land of Simon Laveau. 
It appearing to the Board, from a patent or complete title exhibited, that 
seventeen arpents of front were, together with a greater quantity, granted 
by the Spanish Government to Maurice Conway, 21st June, 17 tT, and it 
appearing that the five and a half arpents of the front remaining of the 
land aforesaid were purchased l^y Pierre Part at the public sale of the 
estate of the late Joachim Mu*e alias Belony, on the 7th day of December, 
1788, and it further appearing to the Board from the several instruments of 
conveyance offered in testimony, that the two tracts of land aforesaid have 
been conveyed to the present claimant, the Board do hereby confirm his 
claim aforesaid." 

The claim of Daniel Clark, No. 127, was considered the same day and 
confirmed — the side lines running back to Amite river ; and the survey 
offered in evidence having been made in 1805 by Lafon, under the orders 
of Governor Claiborne, then exercising all the powers formerly held by 
the Governors-Genei-al of the Colony. And on Monday, 10th of March, 
1806, the claim of Scott and Donalson, No. 133, under a survey made in 
1804, by order of the same authority, was also considered and confirmed 
by the Board, all thp. members being again present. In each case the decision 
was unanimous, which fact it becomes the more proper to state, because 
it has frequently been asserted, and on one occasion, at least, has been ad- 
mitted in a pleading, that the confirmation was made by only a majority 
of the Board, and that Thomas BoUing Robertson was then a member 
and dissented. The truth is, that he was not a member of the Board at all 
until the 26th day of May, 1808, one of the members, J. W. Gurley, 
having died on the 3d of March preceding. Consequently, these cases 
were adjudged things so far as the Board of Commissioners were con- 
cerned, between the United States and claimants, more than two years 



O HOUJIAS LAXD CLAIM. 

before Mr. Robertson ever sat iu the Board ; and when, according to the 
terms of the act of Congress under which it had been named, the report of 

s decisions in the cases before it sliould have ))een before Congress for its 
action. But tlie pjoard seems to have gone on in the investigation of 
claims brought before it, not only uf the character specified iu the act of 
1805, but alsu of those included within the provisions of another act of 
•1807, and no report was made for several years afterwards, nor was Con- 
gress made acquainted with its decisions until the report made by Mr. 
Gallatin, the Secretary of the Treasury, on the 9th of Jannary, 1812 ; 
nor was any action by Congress on the report or any of the cases em- 
braced in it, had until two years afterwards, when, on the 12th of April, 
1814, an act was passed for the final adjustment of land titles in the State 
of Louisiana and Territory of Missouri. And on the 18th of April, 
1814, another conceruiug certificates of confirmation of claims to lands in 
the State of Louisiana was also passed. Time rolled on, and meanwhile 
the lands included within the Iloumas Grant became yearly of greater 
value to their owners, though no final adjustment of the matter was made 
by the officers of the General Land Office, or the Secretary of the Treasury 
at Washington City. But by the provisions of the act of March 3d, 
1811, all lands in this State which were the subject of private claims, 
were reserved fi'om sale or entry ; a provision ^f law which to this day 
remains unrepealed, and under which there has been a vast and almost 
mcredil)le amount of discussion, as the records of that Bureau will show. 

All settlers, therefore, upon any portion of the lands included within the 
alleged limits of the Houmas claim, confirmed as above stated, in 1806, 
have been from the beginning, and still are trespassers, either as against 
the United States — if the Spanish grant should be held to have been 
invalid, or not to have covered the area confirmed by the Board — or 
as against the representatives ot the original purchasers and grantee, if the 
concession was complete and valid, and the boundaries are really as claim- 
ed by those parties. These settlers, and the speculators by whom they are 
said in many instances to be backed, are thus without legal right, and as 
the existence of the claims and of their confirmation by the Commissioners 



HOUMAS LAND CLAIM. 9 

have been uotorious tbroughoiit the whole region, they would seem to he 
without equity, as their possession, it" they had any at all, was with full 
uoticc of the prior claims on the land. 

A survey of the tract, as described in the patent of Galvez, June 21, 
1777, was made by lawful surveyors in 1840 and 1841, which was approved 
September 15, 1841, by the U. S. Surveyor General. Tlie parties in 
interest holding under mesne conveyances from Conway, obtained from the 
Hon. George M. Bibb, Secretary of the Treasury, in the year 1844, 
a recognition of tlieir long delayed rights, and on the 12th day of August of 
that year, that distinguished and able lawyer wrote a letter of instructions to 
the Commissioner of the General Land Office, in which he decided that the 
cases had been covered by the provisions of the above named act of 18th 
of April, 1814 ; that the parties in whose favor the Commissioners had 
confirmed the claims 125, 127 and 133, included in Mr. Gallatin's report of 
January 9, 1812, or their representatives, were entitled to patents for the 
lands so confirmed ; and that the sums which had been paid by parties 
who ha,d been permitted to make entries on portions of the lands included 
in the claims, contrary to the prohibitions of the act of 1811, should have 
their money refunded. The records of the Land Office will prove that this 
was done in many instances. 

But the opponents to the claim were not disp9sed to let the matter stop 
thus, for, by their eflforts and representations at Washington, they succeeded 
in obtaining the passage by Congress of a joint resolution on the 26th of 
June, 1846, by which the Attorney-General of the United States was 
directed to inquire into the validity of the title, and whether any patent 
had been improperly or unlawfully issued in the case of the Houmas grant, 
and to report thereon ; and in case a patent hnd been so issued, the Presi- 
dent was requested to cause legal proceedings to be taken to have its 
validity judicially determined. Under this joint resolution, Mr. Clifford, 
the Attorney-General, made a report in 1847, in which, after examining 
the case as he understood it, he came to the conclusion that the grant by 
Galvez on the 21st of June, 1777, in favor of Maurice Conway only 
covered forty-two arpents of land in depth from the river, including his 
front tract of forty arpents in depth. ^N'ow, when it is remembered that 
2 



10 HOUMAS LAND CLAIM. 

Conway, when he asked for the rear vacant lands in 1116, alleged that he 
was already the owner of the forty arpents in front, that he needed timber 
for his plantation, and that the tknber was no nearer than a league and a 
half, or at least three miles, from the river, and considering, also, that about 
twenty-seven arpents front are about cciual to a mile, this conclusion of the 
Attorney-General was most unaccountable and inexplicable. Of what 
possible benefit could it have been to Maurice Conway to have a strip of 
two arpents tacked on to the rear lino of his plantation, which practically 
put him no nearer to the timber which he so much needed ? Is it to be 
reasonably supposed that when he asked for all the vacant lands in his rear, 
following the directions of his f-ide lines, and had had those lines prolonged 
in the manner certified by Captain Andry, that the- Governor intended to 
grant, and he was willing to i*e -eive after all his pains, only two additional 
arpents in depth to those he already owned, and upon which, according to 
his petition, there could have been no timber ? But be this as it may, the 
President in 1849 directed suits to be brought to annul the patents issued 
in favor of Clark's representatives and others, by his predecessor in 1844, 
and in the bill of complaint filed by the District Attorney, for the first 
time was the intimation of fraud or mal-practices thrown out against the 
claimants under the Spanish grant, for it never had been done by Congress, 
nor, so far as the records show, by auy Government official previous to that 
date. An immense mass of official documentary and other evidence was 
brought forward by the defendants to support the validity of their titles, 
and they emphatically and successfully repelled the charge made by the 
bill, of fraud and false information, in obtaining the patent. It is said 
again, that Judge Campbell of the Supreme Court, held that the claim was 
fraudulent. A copy of his decree in. the case is now before me, and, so far 
from sustaining such a charge, it very decidedly negatives it ; for after 
stating that the claim No. 121, the one in favor of Daniel Clark, and 
which was before the Court, had been confirmed by the Board of Commis- 
sioners, and that the act of 1811 had provided that no land should be 
offered for sale a claim to which had been in due time filed before the 
Register for investigation, until the decision of Congress was made thereon, 
he says of the act of 1811 : " This act is one founded on the plainest prin- 
ciples of justice, and has been uniformly maintained, in the fullness of its 



HOnUS LAND CLAIM. 



11 



spirit, by tho Supreme Court of the Tnited States. Nothing would be 
more inequitable than an attempt on the part of the United States to 
involve the claimants, whom they had brought before their own tribunals, 
with the expectation that their rights would be ascertained in a summary 
way, but in a spirit of equity and liberality wi litigations with other claim- 
ants deriving their titles ex -post facto from the United States; no such con- 
duct has been countenanced by Congress, though this case shows very 
wanton violations of the act of 1811, by subordinate officers of the Land 
Office department," and again, " The laud embraced in this claim was thus 
protected from sale until the pleasure of Congress upon the report of the 
Board of Commissioners should be made known." He then proceeded to 
declare, that he did not believe that the provisions of the act of April 18, 
1814, w^ere apphcable to the case ; for, said he, " The act does not apply 
to any of the claims upon which the final action of Congress was required 
to impart to them validity, or to relieve them ft'om the burden of a claim 
on the part of the United States. The favorable judgment of the Com- 
missioners in regard to the Houmas claim is not adopted by this act, nor 
does the act empower the President to renounce the claim of the United 
States to it. The patent, consequently, was issued without the authority 
of law." And he concludes, "I do not decide any question upon the 
validity of the defendants' title to the land they claim, nor upon the effect 
of any acts of the officers of the Land Office in respect to determining its 
boundaries, nor the effect of the patent, in any other respect than that of 
its being a paper issued without legal authority." 

Our distinguished Senator, Mr. Benjamin, has been attacked, and his 
course in Congress with regard to the confirmation by the act of June 2, 
1858, of tlais and other claims reported upon favorably by the Board of 
Commissioners in 1811, has been denounced in most violent terms by 
parties interested in the defeat of the Houmas claim. He has been accus- 
ed of " smuggling" the bill through Congress, and of lending himself to the 
promotion of the interests of his colleague, to the injury of worthy and 
innocent settlers, etc. Happily for him, if he need any defence in the eyes 
of the great mass of a constituency which he has so well and so ably 
served' — the journals of Congress remain is a record of all that is done 
there. They show that in the Senate, the bill which finally became the 



12 HOUMAS LAND CLAIM. 

law SO much" complained of, was referred to the Committee on Private 
Land Claims, and that on the 6th of February, 1857, a unanimous report 
was made in its favor, with amendments, giving the reasons why the confir- 
mations which had been so long delayed should no longer be postponed. 
This was at the Second Session of the Thirty-fourth Congress. At the 
First Session of the Thirty-fifth Congress, the same Committee again re- 
ported favorably of the measure, on the 12th of March, 1858, the 
reports in each case being printed and furnished to every member of each 
House for information. After passing the Senate, the bill went down to 
the House, on the 19th of April, 1858; was referred to its Committee on 
Private Land Claims, whose Chairman was the Hon. J. M. Sandige, of 
this State, on the 12th of May ; was reported back on the 29th May; and 
passed June 1st, 1858. Now, how much more time and opportunity for 
the examination of this claim could have reasonably been asked by Repre- 
sentatives watchful of the rights or interests of their constituents ? Be- 
sides, the bill, carefully reserves the rights of all adverse claimants, and 
permits^ theu" being tested in any court or courts of justice, thus securing to 
the very men who have been most conspicuous in this work of denunciation 
of Mr. Benjamin, the benefit of their own State tribunals, and even juries 
of the vicinage to try their causes and maintain their rights, if any they 
have. 

Were one to credit the' clamor and out-cry which have been raised by 
the adverse claimants and the journials and newspaper correspondents 
in their interest, he would conclude that the Houmas Claim was the only 
one confirmed by the second section of the Act of 1858. But such, in 
truth, is far from being the case, for the report of Mr. Gallatin embraced 
hundreds of claims — many of which still remained unacted on by Congress 
— and the etiect of the act will be to remove a cloud from the land titles of 
a large number of our citizens, which has hung for near sixty years, 
through the dilatoriness of Congress, over their homes and plantations, 
which have grown so much in value during this lapse of time as now to be 
worth millions of dollars; at the same time it will remove, in no inconsider- 
able degree, one of the greatest obstacles to our prosperity arising from 
this state of uncertainty and dispute as to titles to land. 

Mr. Slidell, too, comes in for his share of denunciation, and has been 



HOUMAS LAND CLAIM. 13 

held up before the community on the charge of prostituting his high office 
for his private benefit. Committee men, anonymous newspaper correspon- 
dents, and conductors of journals, notoriously and bitterly hostile to hkn, 
assert that he owns more than twenty-two thousand acres of the Houmas 
claim, which they value at a million of dollars. I addressed a note to this 
gentleman, asking such documentary or other evidence with regard to the 
claim, as he might have in his possession. It appears that, in 1836, nine" 
gentlemen, of which Mr. Slidell was one, became the purchasers of an 
interest of ninety-thousand four hundred and thirty superficial arpents 
included in the Houmas claim, at the price of two dollars and fifty cents 
the arpent, for which a cash payment was made in part, and notes given 
for the remaining payments at from one to six years' date. The purchas- 
ers sfterwards complained of combination and misrepresentation on the 
part of their seller, and one of their own number as to the quality of the 
lands, and also of defect of title, fear of eviction, disturbance, etc. The 
plamtifi", however, recovered, in a subsequent action in injunction, brought 
by Mr. Shdell against Rightor, the vendor, and his wife (3 Annual Re- 
ports, 199) the Supreme Court of this State, by Judge Rost, said that 
Mr. SUdell had examined the titles and found them satisfactory. Indeed, 
on no occasion, or in any manner, has Mr. Slidell ever said that the title to 
the Houmas grant was not a good and valid one ; his objection having 
been to that of Rightor. As to the immense value of the land owned by" 
Mr. Slidell, the assessors of Ascension parish for years past have valued it 
at the moderate sum of fifteen thousand dollars ; and fixed its area at ten 
thousand superficial arpents. If any one wishes to make a speculation by 
buying Mr. Slidell's interest, I learn that he will cheerfully sell it for forty 
thousand dollars, on a long credit, which sum does not approach the 
amount it cost him in principal, interest and taxes. 

In justice to that gentleman, I enclose you a copy of the letter which he 
wrote in answer to my note addressed to him, because you will see from it 
what has been his entire course in Congress with regard to the claim, and 
how Uttle he is amenable to censm'e, in the matter, from fair and impartial 
men. 

I have thus laid before you what, I trust, will be found a candid and fair 



14 HOUMAS LAND CLAIM. 

history and review of the Houmas Claim — indicating the means of informa- 
tion on the subject, which are open to all who desire to investigate it, and 
form their own opinions. 

In conclusion, I trust, also, that you will perceive how little our two dis- 
tinguished Senators are worthy of the wholesale detraction and abuse 
which have been showered upon them from hostile quarters. They are men 
to both of whom the State of Louisiana owes much for great and signal 
services, and to all right-minded citizens their characters and reputations 
should be cherished objects. 

Tour friend and servant, 

John Claiborne. 

Hon. C. T. Bemiss, Jefferson Parish. 



LETTER FROM THE HON. JOHN SLIDELL TO JOHN CLAIBORNE. 



My Dear Sir: I have your note of the Tth inst., asking me to commu- 
nicate any facts or documents in relation to the Houmas claims, and the 
legislation of Congress on those claims and others of a similar 'character. 
I send you herewith various papers bearing on the subject, and think that 
they will furnish the required information. It is my intention, at the meet- 
ing of Congress, to call up and refer the petition of certain inhabitants of 
the parish of Ascension, which was presented towards the close of the last 
session, with the view of having a report thereon, giving a full history of 
the claim and a review of all the facts connected with it. My colleague, 
Mr. Benjamin, as Chairman of the Senate Committee of Private Laud 
Claims, to whom the petition was referred, reported, two or three days 
before the adjournment of Congress, a joint resolution directing tbe Secre- 
tary of Interior to suspend the issuing of patents for the lands embraced in 
the 2d section of the Act of the 2d of June, 1858, until the close of the next 
session of Congress. The reason for this action of the Committee was, that 
there was not sufficient time for the investigation of the case before the 
adjournment. The joint resolution was passed by a dispensation of the 
rules (which the objection of a single Senator'^ would have prevented} 
through all its stages, and sent to the House, on the day of its introduction, 
where it was passed in like manner. You have seen enough of the' mode of 



HOUMAS LAND CLAIM. 15 

doing business in Congress to know that if either my colleague or I had 
wished to offer the slightest indirect obstacle to the passage of the resolu- 
tion, it could not possibly have gone through its several readings in both 
Houses before the adjournment ; the patents for the Houmas lauds would 
have been issued by this time — when issued, they will add nothing to the 
validity of a title which is already complete. The petition of the inhabi- 
tants of Ascension, and the resolutions said to have been adopted at a 
public meeting at New River, were concocted by persons having no pecu- 
niary interest in the matter, and gotten up for purposes purely political. 
They contain assertions which their authors knew to be false. My indi- 
vidual share of the land is ten thousand ai pents, or eight thousand acres ; 
it is represented to be twenty-two thousand acres, worth one million of 
dollars. You will find among the papers sent you my tax bill for the last 
year, by which you will see that my interest of ten thousand arpents is esti- 
mated by the sworn Assessors of the parish at fifteen thousand dollars. I 
believe that it has never been assessed, during the twenty-three years that 
I have been paying taxes on it, at a higher rate. 

Judge Campbell is said to have set aside the patents in two of the Hou- 
mas cases, on the ground that the claim was fraudulent. You have a copy 
of the opinion ; l)y it you will perceive that he expressly declared that the 
title was not in question before him ; that he scrupulously abstained from 
any allusion to its merits, but decreed the patents to be cancelled, on the 
ground that the Secretary of the Treasury had signed them without au- 
thority of law. No patent was ever issued for the William Conway tract, 
in which I am interested, and consequently no suit was brought iu relation 
to it. The number of families settled on the different tracts is said to lie 
five hundred. This is a gross exaggeration ; but whatever may be the 
number, they have, each and all of them, made their settlements with the 
full knowledge that they were trespassers aud invaders of rights as sacred 
and complete as those of any proprietor in Louisiana. 

In 1836, that tract'of the Houmas graat which I and others then pur- 
chased, was an unbroken wilderness, known imperfectly to the surveyors 
and tofa very few adventurous hunters, who with "great difficulty could 
make their way from the Mississippi to the Amite. If you will take the 
trouble to look into the list of pre-emption claims in the Register's office, 



16 HOUMAS LAND CLAIM. 

you will not, 1 think, find one on the land purchased from Rightor ; all 
the settlements have been made since. I paid for my share $25,114 98, 
average cash term llth May, 1839 ; that share, with proportion of taxes 
and other expenses and interest not compounded, stands me in over $*70,- 
000. I will gladly take for it $40,000, and give a long credit at a mode- 
rate rate of interest. You are hereby authorized to sell it for me on those 
terms. 

In this matter I entertain no ill feeling toward the simple-minded sign- 
ers of the memorial, with whom I and ray co-proprietors are prepared to, 
deal most liberally. They are the mere tools of unscrupulous knaves, com- 
Ijined to effect by any agencies, however base, the gratification of their 
personal malice, and the improvement of their broken political fortunes. 

My colleague introduced the amendment confirming the Louisiana, 
claims, and carried the bill through without consulting me, directly or indi- 
rectly. I think that I can attest without qualification, that we never ex- 
changed a word on the subject until he informed me that it had l^een re- 
turngd from the House of Representatives. I never spoke of it, in any 
stage of its progress, to any member of either House of Congress, nor, in- 
deed, to any one in Washington. By referring to the papers I have given 
you, you will see that it has been considered during two sessions, and ac^ 
companied by printed reports. You know that these printed bills and re- 
ports are placed in possession of every member of both Houses ; and if 
Mr. Miles Taylor knew, as he pretends, nothing of it, it betrays gross inat- 
tention to his duties ; if he did, his attempt now to screen himself from 
responsibility to his constituents on New River, by insinuations of trick 
and concealment, can only be qualified by term? which it would V)e in bad 
taste to express, but which are not the less deserved. 

You are perfectly at liberty to make such use of this letter as you may 
deem proper. 

Yery respectfully, your obedient servant, 

JOHN SLIDELL. 

John Claiborne, Esq. 

Neto Orleans, Botouary H, 1859. 



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